Maria roars her way into her second Wimbledon final

The semi-final line up for the women’s singles section was surprising to say the least. After Kvitova defeated Victoria Azarenka to get into her maiden Grand Slam final, the second semi final was straight forward.

Also Read: Wimbledon At Glance

Maria Sharapova has been on the comeback trail for the past year steadily working her way back after facing a horrific time with injuries. Just a fortnight ago she had a chance to complete a career Grand Slam and blew it in the semi-finals losing to eventual champion Li Na. However Wimbledon was where Sharapova won her first Grand Slam aged just 17 and she wasn’t going to go down to Lisicki that easily.

The match started with Lisicki holding her serve and breaking Sharapova’s first service game while racing to a 3-0 lead in the first set. Just as Lisicki seemed to be getting away with the match having forced deuce for the second time in the fourth game, Sharapova finally got her game going and kept serve. Sharapova proceeded to break Lisicki’s serve while equalling the score to 3-3. After the next round of service games the set was poised 4-4. However Sharapova plundered Lisicki’s serve mercilessly and kept serve to wrap up the first set 6-4.

The second set was more about delaying the inevitable than anything else. Sharapova started the set just as she had ended the first, dominating the game completely. She broke Lisicki’s serve twice to go 3-0 up. Lisicki broke back in the fourth set but surrendered her serve meekly in the next game. Sharapova kept serve to go 5-1 up and within touching distance of the finals. Lisicki finally got her act together in the second set as she first kept serve and then broke Sharapova to arouse interest in the match at 5-3. Sharapova however is not known for sticking around and promptly broke Lisicki before any thoughts regarding a comeback entered one’s mind.

The straight sets victory 6-4 6-3 only ensured that Sharapova would go into the finals on Saturday as the favourite. Regardless of the outcome on Saturday, one thing is sure- we better get used to her screaming all over again.

Tags: Czech Republic, Grand Slam Final, Maria Sharapova, Petra Kvitova, Tennis, Wimbledon Championships, Wimbledon Final